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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
PvP In Ashes
Shilee
Member, Alpha Two
Ashes of Creation is going to be a modern day MMO that truly plans on being a PvX game. This is reflected in both the game design and by information provided to us from the development livestreams.
Most proposed PvE systems will have a complementary PvP system in place to enhance it. Node progression will have node sieges, caravans will have the ability for caravan raids, most dungeons/raids will be open world and susceptible to fights over the bosses, etc. Removal of any of these PvP types will undermine both the difficulty, and the enjoyment of a lot of these activities.
I have recently seen posts on the forums about why we should remove open world unflagged PvP, why we should segregate PvP tiers, why gear difference will make PvP unfun for casual players. The game systems need to be tested as the developers envisioned them before we propose ways to fix said systems. We cannot pretend to know what changes we need to these systems prior to testing them. That being said, removing or severely changing to a PvP flagging system, or reducing the effectiveness of gear aren't the solutions, fine tuning the corruption system is. If during testing you believe that ganking is happening too frequently, increasing the penalty from the corruption system will increase the risk of PKing without increasing the reward will further discourage players. PvP is going to be an extremely small portion of your gameplay for those who don't wish to engage in it, so limiting it (prior to testing) for others because you might not enjoy it comes off as selfish.
Steven and the entire development team are working hard to give all MMO players something that they can enjoy. Whether it's PvE, PvP, RPing, or gold making, there is something for everyone. The reason this game is so heavily anticipated is because of the ideas that Steven and the team proposed to us and a vast majority of players believe they are good ideas. Despite that this game isn't going to be for everyone, and that's fine. That being said leaving your usual comfort zone may be a good idea, and you may even find out you do enjoy some of the things you are preemptively trying to stop or limit.
Most proposed PvE systems will have a complementary PvP system in place to enhance it. Node progression will have node sieges, caravans will have the ability for caravan raids, most dungeons/raids will be open world and susceptible to fights over the bosses, etc. Removal of any of these PvP types will undermine both the difficulty, and the enjoyment of a lot of these activities.
I have recently seen posts on the forums about why we should remove open world unflagged PvP, why we should segregate PvP tiers, why gear difference will make PvP unfun for casual players. The game systems need to be tested as the developers envisioned them before we propose ways to fix said systems. We cannot pretend to know what changes we need to these systems prior to testing them. That being said, removing or severely changing to a PvP flagging system, or reducing the effectiveness of gear aren't the solutions, fine tuning the corruption system is. If during testing you believe that ganking is happening too frequently, increasing the penalty from the corruption system will increase the risk of PKing without increasing the reward will further discourage players. PvP is going to be an extremely small portion of your gameplay for those who don't wish to engage in it, so limiting it (prior to testing) for others because you might not enjoy it comes off as selfish.
Steven and the entire development team are working hard to give all MMO players something that they can enjoy. Whether it's PvE, PvP, RPing, or gold making, there is something for everyone. The reason this game is so heavily anticipated is because of the ideas that Steven and the team proposed to us and a vast majority of players believe they are good ideas. Despite that this game isn't going to be for everyone, and that's fine. That being said leaving your usual comfort zone may be a good idea, and you may even find out you do enjoy some of the things you are preemptively trying to stop or limit.
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Comments
I also sincerly hope that they leave expert raid encounters to the 14/WoW crowd (as those companies will always focus on it until their death) and focus on evolving the OW genre which I know can do better.
Stagger and the stamina system were COMPLETELY removed, instead of just getting some balance patches, or maybe introduce the system better to the players so they know what's going on. It gave depth to the combat, which was very much needed, but lots of people who came from other MMOs were not familiar how to play that almost souls-like combat, so they got their asses kicked, and in frustration they demanded to have the whole thing removed. Needless to say, after removed, lots of people moved to the forums and you could see the visible confusion by many people (even new players) wondering: what's wrong with the combat? It feels so shallow and boring, almost like something is missing. Well yeah of course it is boring, because they removed multiple key components, and after that the only thing combat was is using your 6 abilities in a correct order, which gets boring very quickly. Light and heavy attacks lost the impact they had, footsies are non-existent, and I could go on and on.
I hope the team sticks to their vision, because Amazon abandoned their vision and it made their game worse by A LOT.
Having good PvP is just as important as having good PvE. PvP is literally infinite content (as long as all, or most classes are viable) whereas PvE always needs content updates (new raids, new dungeons, new bosses, you name it). Both are equally important, and the idea that they could compliment each other this much makes me excited.
When I say tuning I mean just adjusting the numbers so you either gain corruption faster, or keep the gain speed the same and ramp up the diminishing damage/healing effects, and keep the overall system in place (random examples)
That is already a controversial and unnecessary change to the fair Lineage 2 system that is already slightly biased toward "evil".
Steven literally wrote that and might very well stick to it to some degree as added ammo for you guys to insure the scrubs or "PvE only" crowd asking about pvp so that they're not overly concerned.
I put in 1200 hours into New World by January and I honestly wouldn't have minded New World having 0 end game content if they at least made the wars playable and not the buggiest thing to ever be released. I didn't see anything prior to release so I was unaware they butchered their own combat system like that, that's pretty sad to hear. But that goes to show why mass testing should be done before making changes, and to not make drastic changes like that.
That being said, I have zero faith in the open world pvp feeling good or balanced or even interesting. People don't want fair fights, they want to steamroll for easy loot.
I'm just hoping everything else about the game is good enough to make up for it. And if it isn't? Oh well. Just add it to the list of other games I don't play. Ain't the world of the world.
I'm definitely in favour of the less corruption than more as I really enjoy open world PvP in MMOs, but I will have no issue being corrupted when the game comes out no matter what Steven decides to do
I want fair fights tho, makes pvp more interesting.
I don't speak for everyone, but for me specifically I generally get bored of one sided fights and look to fight the best players in any game. If there is no challenge, why do it is basically my MO for any game I play.
Cannot agree more
Everyone likes a fair game, but what does fair mean really? For me "fair competition" means everyone starts from the same starting position (no p2w), and then depending on your free time, skill, brains, knowledge and preparation you can achieve different tiers of raids and other content.
For the asian market, even p2w is fair game. You got the money, you get to enjoy the benefits, just like in real life.
For some people "fair" means nullifying gear in PvP, but I personally don't think that's fair, because the time I spent gearing my character loses value.
My point here is not to start arguing about this, just trying to show how creating "fair gameplay" cannot be achieved without taking a stand. First "fairness" has to be defined through the eyes of the person creating the system.
As far as I know they will not implement equalized gear in open world PvP, but there may be equalized PvP in certain arena battlegrounds under specific circumstances (this would probably be the best, the more options to enjoy PvX the better).
As long as I end up winning, I also want fair fights!
As for the OP, I pretty much agree.
That would be a disaster for the evolution of the genre.
I'm sick and tired of an mmorpg being cheapened with other games ie it's basically a collection of games inside of a game (Raid, Arena, whatever).
"Take it to the Arena because our game doesn't work!....well it works, through the lvling/story phase, just like any other game
The benefits of having an arena is for people to practice PvP for the open world.
Well that's an awfully simple idea...
It can be non instanced, sign up gladiator team arena where you have the chance to earn money and experience, team up and socialise, lvl ranges taken into account like....can even include hard PvE for practice but it can turn into an experience that molds with the world instead of it just being "another instanced mode where you wrack up points and join with randoms at the click of a button (join queue)".
They probably had a negative reaction in another game and have the MMO version of PTSD now because of it. Probably some part of it has to do with not wanting to seem bad also but you can't improve if you don't participate
This. I'm hoping Intrepid figures out something to make people WANT to try PvP, and want to learn it, from an enjoyment perspective, somehow, Or we're just going to keep seeing those same complaints all the time. Now, does that matter? Who knows. Maybe those people will all just not play, but I really hope they do something (my suggested method doesn't fit within Ashes very well so I too, am just waiting for Corruption tuning).
But in the end if you can't help people learn to LIKE actually being involved in PvP, I feel it'd be hard to sustain a game with such a freeform take on it.
Even if people refuse to participate in PvP I'd want them to play the game regardless. More players means more and faster development from the devs, and more people to farm materials for me to take
Player combat is going to be a blast.
Hopefully the corruption system makes people pump the breaks on that steamroll for easy loot.
I'd like to see more corruption applied for the more one sided the fight was, not sure how that would be gauged though.
I'm not sure how serious you are here, but remember that saying things like this is technically 'the problem' for a lot of the people one might be trying to encourage.
Or maybe it's just me actually trying to do that and you really do just want more prey.
I do plan on participating in PvP and attacking caravans, and more players will fuel the type of content I think I would enjoy the most, but I wasn't being serious in that statement. The bigger the player base is more income for the devs, making their development for future updates faster and more polished.
Agreed. Just didn't want you losing your credibility over a joke.
It's fairly easy for people to see a thread like this as just 'bait' to get them interested, as I'm sure you probably know. Some people don't care about 'spooking' or 'scaring off' people like that, though, so some people would probably have met the person who isn't 'joking' when they say it.
Bear in mind that for some people, competitive games really are just one GIGANTIC losing streak, so they wouldn't read between the lines to perceive your comment as 'well obviously I might lose, too'.
Yeah I see how it could come off that way. I generally don't like how territorial some people come off when talking about this game. We can disagree with others without completely trying to get them to leave the community. I think it comes from people being super passionate about this game (myself included), and want to make sure people don't encourage the devs to change the things that made them excited for the game in the first place.
It ebbs and flows. Conversations tend to get more heated after new content is spotlighted, which is fine. It’s still a pretty good community, prickles and all.
To the topic at hand, people are going to die and lose a % of certificates, but you’ll earn it back. You will get ganked. And you can participate later in hunting down gankers. The folks who lose in a battle will win others. It’s fine. It makes the game world more interesting.
At this stage there is so much more to be tested than overly concerned about. Best thing is to hang out, participate in some threads, and if you can, sign up to test.
On the one hand, I REALLY REALLY want to call you out on this.
On the other, I am oddly glad that some people in the world can still believe this.